Automatic batteryless saving patcher for GBA

This program patches a GBA game for batteryless saving (i.e. saving on a bootleg cartridge containing SRAM but no battery).

The game must be SRAM patched before using this program. GBATA or Flash1M_Repro_SRAM_patcher can be used depending on the game. The patch contains two modes, which can be selected during patching.

In auto mode, the save will automatically be flushed a few seconds after the in-game save.

In keypad trigger mode, the save can be flushed by pressing L+R+Start+Select at any time. This mode requires less patching, so may be compatible with more games.

The game will freeze when flushing has started and will unfreeze when flushing has completed.

Usage

Run with ROM as the only argument, a new ROM will be output. For GUI users, drag the ROM onto the .exe in the file browser.

Building

No build script, run the following command and hope it doesn't spit out any errors

$DEVKITARM/bin/arm-none-eabi-gcc -mcpu=arm7tdmi -nostartfiles -nodefaultlibs -mthumb -fPIE -Os -fno-toplevel-reorder payload.c -T payload.ld -o payload.elf; $DEVKITARM/bin/arm-none-eabi-objcopy -O binary payload.elf payload.bin; xxd -i payload.bin > payload_bin.c ; gcc -g patcher.c payload_bin.c

Credits

Written by metroid-maniac

Thanks to

• ez-flash for EZ Flash Omega kernel containing examples for hooking the IRQ handler
• Fexean for GBABF
• vrodin for Burn2Slot
• Lesserkuma for FlashGBX and batteryless versions of Goomba Color and PocketNES
• Ausar for helping to port the payload to C.